You Are Dumb, which is not a blog, posts new columns when it can manage to in these troubled Trumpian times. It is also a Twitter feed, @youaredumb, with content in a similar vein but much shorter. For a take on what a blog by me would be like, check out OLDNERD.

Memo to the new members of the Suicide Squad, the entire Suicide Squad, and Suicide Squad whiners: YOU ARE DUMB.

Astute readers may recall that I've dubbed the 2016 Republican presidential field the Suicide Squad, because, just like the fictional Suicide Squad, there are a lot of them, most of them are obscure, and none of them are going to make it out of the election with their presidential aspirations alive. Unlike the fictional Squad, though, they get the bonus perk of being front and center on SPASTIC TOPIC MONKEY FRIDAY!

I'd like to start today off by welcoming the two newest members of the Suicide Squad: Rick Santorum and George Pataki.

You may remember Rick Santorum for his anti-gay views, his rabid social conservatism, and as the victim of the single greatest piece of political activism ever, courtesy Dan Savage. He's hoping you'll forget all that and treat him like the pro-jobs, pro-little-guy populist he presented himself as this week. And you will, if you work for any major media organization, apparently.

You may remember George Pataki if you're related to George Pataki, or I guess lived in New York State where he was a governor for twelve whole years? Between 9 and 21 years ago? You know, George "George Pataki" Pataki, author of The George Pataki Doctrine, which mainly is a manifesto about having to remind everyone he ran New York State for 12 years and is not Rudy Giuliani.

By some counts, if everyone who's made noise about jumping into the 2016 race does so, the Republicans could be fielding NINETEEN different candidates this election. For a sufficiently loose definition of "different", of course. That's a lot of assholes. That's 18 people wasting their goddamned time and the money of a lot of rich people. In other words, it's not all bad.

Still, it does make me wonder if the entrance requirements for a presidential campaign might be a bit low. Actually, that's not correct. It's more accurate to wonder if the rewards for LOSING a Republican primary are too damn high. It's that parallel structure thing again, like with the Duggars. There's an entire industry built up around making sure failed Republican candidates are fed, watered, and provided with ample camera time and media exposure. Take that away as a consolation prize and see how many of these fuckers step up out of a love for public service.

With up to 19 candidates, all with deep-seated personality disorders and entitlement issues, you can bet the whining about being left out of the debates has already begun. Fox News has decided to limit their debates to ten candidates, although after the election, I'm sure the other nine will get their own shows. This is clearly a perversion of the democratic process, so let's embrace the power of technology. Proxy debates.

Have any candidate who doesn't make it into the debate create a Mii avatar. Line the bottom of the screen with the avatars and give them a button. Whenever a candidate who makes it into the debate says something they agree with, have them press the button and the little avatar will wave. It's not like 19 Republicans are going to somehow cover a wider variety of topics and opinions than 10 of them are. Unless Huckabee somehow doesn't make it on stage, at which point the "let's forgive child molesters we've tied our political fortunes to" constituency will go unrepresented. Unless one of the other 18 are Catholic, I guess.